Love as I have Loved
Let us pray. Holy God, open our eyes to your presence. Open our ears to your call. Open our hearts to your love. Amen. Please be seated.
Today’s gospel takes us back to Holy Week, to that final meal Jesus shared with his disciples, in the events that led up to the crucifixion. It might seem strange to hear this reading in the middle of Eastertide, but the gospel readings for the remaining Sundays of this Easter Season are taken from Jesus’s final discourse, a three-chapter farewell address that Jesus gives to his disciples in order to prepare them for his death and to bless them with the promises and challenges of their future.
As we take this look back, I can’t help but wonder if the disciples were doing a similar thing in those weeks just after the Resurrection. Remembering the stories, what Jesus said, how the events played out just as he had predicted. Our gospel puts us at an event that took place before that first Easter. In a sense, we are doing what the disciples did. We are looking back at what Jesus did in his life on earth in the light of his death and resurrection. I was recently reminded of the words by Danish poet, philosopher, and theologian. Søren Kierkegaard, “Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.” Life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards.
I found these words to provide a helpful lens through which to enter our gospel today. Everything that Jesus did here on earth can be better understood by looking back, by looking back on the other side of Good Friday and Easter. That is what we are doing today. We live as the disciples of Jesus forwards, but we learn by looking backwards. Our gospel begins at the Last Supper when Judas had gone out, a dark moment when the heels of Judas leaving the other disciples at the Last Supper to betray Jesus. We know what’s coming and we know where Judas is off to. But just before this moment, Jesus demonstrates his love for the same disciples who will fail him miserably. Jesus washes and feeds Judas who will betray him. Peter who will deny him. Thomas, who will doubt the resurrection and all the rest who will fail to stand by him in his hour of greatest distress.
The love that Jesus demonstrates is certainly not based on the merit of the recipients, and Jesus commands his disciples to love others the same way. Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The idea of love as core of religious identity and practice is not new. The commandment to love is found in the Jewish tradition. In the Torah, Deuteronomy six, five, we hear, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might.’ And the Jewish people were to love God and to love neighbor. In Judaism, love was defined by obedience to the law. What makes this commandment new is that it is not because it is based on the demands of the law and tradition, but on the self-offering love Jesus himself gives, that opens us to a new relationship with God. It is new in that disciples of Jesus are commanded to love one another just as Jesus had loved. And that means loving those who doubt them and deny knowing them and even those who betray them. Because that’s what Jesus did for them. He loved them. And Jesus loves us even when we doubt, deny or betray.
And now simply put, he asked us to do the same for others. Jesus invites his disciples to love one another as he loved Nicodemus, meeting the Pharisee where he was, taking seriously his intellectual doubts, gently leading him from a judgmental legalism to spiritual freedom. To love one another as he loved the Samaritan woman at the well. Overcoming the prejudices of the ancient world by honoring the humanity of a foreigner, breaking custom to engage in conversation with a woman in public and gently confronting her with her broken life, and then inviting her toward wholeness. Loving one another as he loved the woman caught in adultery, accepting her and forgiving her unconditionally. Condemning those who reject her because of her lifestyle and inviting her to a new life. Loving one another as Jesus has loved the disciples means honoring and serving others with the same physical humility that Jesus displayed by washing their feet. Yet Jesus makes it clear what it means for us, for his disciples to love, when he points to his own example. Nothing stops Jesus’ love. Jesus’ love is for everyone, no exceptions. There is no cap on forgiveness and the generosity of Jesus’ love. There are no limits, boundaries, or restrictions.
This is a new way of conceptualizing the concept of love. Jesus’ ministry points to an expansive and inclusive love that is freely offered. Now, there are some who hear this command and understand it as a narrowing of who is able to receive such love to only the followers of Jesus. Others seek to limit the scope of love to one’s family, those of the same political ideology, the same social status, the same race or ethnicity, and seek to set some way of setting boundaries between ourselves and the other. In this way, we establish a ranking system where we may love our neighbor, but not as much as we love people who are most like us. As we look at the current divisions in our society, we can see that failing to love is at the very heart of the matter. This love requires us to lay down our pride and radically love those who believe differently than we do, and to affirm their dignity as human beings. But it does not mean that we surrender to or remain silent when confronted with injustice and oppressive systems. More is required than just respecting the rights and needs of others in an intellectual way.
It means standing with and standing up for the vulnerable and oppressed by showing up. It means raising our voices and putting our bodies out there against the loss of compassion for our fellow siblings. As we watch hard fought civil rights, protections and advances from the past century, being rolled back with the swipe of a pen and the social safety nets created for our siblings in the most needs systematically being dismantled. And may we not be lulled into a false sense of security by our perceived privilege and status. As we have found with our neighbors and friends who are civil servants, circumstances may change in an instant. So, as Jesus’ disciples, to love one another means to take ourselves out of the center and put the needs and good of the whole community first, to become a unified plurality woven together by love. Jesus’ message has not changed over time. He is telling you and me as disciples in our time, “love as I have loved, live as you have seen me live.” But that’s not all. Jesus follows his commandment with serious words that may serve as a promise, an incentive, or warning. “By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
Our love for each other is how the world will know who we are and whose we are. Our love for each other is how the world will come to know Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I feel the weight of that charge, that responsibility. Carrying out this love command will ensure that Jesus’ spirit will continue to be lived out in our world. As long as we show his love to the world, Christ’s presence will be manifest as well. The command to love is not a command to feel something. It is a command to do something. It’s a command to serve each other, take care of one another, and how well we do that shows the rest of the world what it means to follow Jesus and what it means to be loved by God. Loving as Jesus loved is not easy. Jesus never said it would be. As we heard in our passage from the Book of Acts, living our Jesus’ new command may be surrounded by conflict and controversy. But here’s the good news. When we fail, and we will, Jesus will still love us. Looking back as at his life, he has given us all we need to know to live forward in love. So let us love one another until all the world knows the love of Jesus to the glory of God. Amen.